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Britain has returned to the racism of the 70s, and ‘it’s the government’s fault’ | The Canary

Immigration fail: When Theresa May tried to get illegal immigrants to “go home” with an ad campaign on vans driving through London, it caused national protest – and this response from the campaigning group Liberty.

It is the government’s fault – to a large degree.

This Blog – among others – warned that the Conservative government was stoking a rise in racially-motivated tension and division, way back in 2013 when Theresa May authorised a fleet of vans to drive around London telling illegal immigrants to “go home”.

That woman is now the prime minister of the United Kingdom.

Read what I said at the time and consider what has happened since.

All part of the Conservative tactic – which is, at its simplest, “divide and rule”.

A charity’s evidence to a parliamentary inquiry has shown a six-fold increase in hate crime from the previous year. It stated [pdf] that, since the EU referendum, Britain has returned to ‘old school racism’ that was common through the 1970s and 1980s. And it blamed government messages that labelled the victims as ‘outsiders’.

The Home Affairs Select Committee announced its intention to launch an inquiry into hate crime and its violent consequences on 4 July.

But the Institute for Race Relations (IRR) pointed not to prevention, prosecution, the internet, community or mental health services as the cause of such concerning acts. Instead, it asked the Home Office to look at its own policies.

“…many prominent politicians should share the blame for the upsurge of xenophobia and intimidation following the referendum. But we would also contend (and the cases we are monitoring support this) that the ‘insider-outsider’ messages projected by the Home Office’s ‘hostile environment’ policy for irregular migrants have also played not a small part in the deteriorating climate in the UK.”

It further said:

“the most common insult thrown at the victims of hate crime was ‘Go Home’. This cannot but bring to mind the Home Office’s ‘Go Home’ vans.”

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5 thoughts on “Britain has returned to the racism of the 70s, and ‘it’s the government’s fault’ | The Canary”

Health, wealth and colour racism is now the norm. Whilst the disabled used to be looked upon with sympathy they are now hated by a growing majority. This is largely attributed to programmes aired such as Benefits Britain. These programmes have convinced the UK that all people out of work – never mind the reason – are SCROUNGERS. This is very difficult to fight as more people are convinced by every programme.
It has been a successful campaign for the Tories and a nightmare for people out of work. The Benefit Caps are seen as necessary now by the brainwashed public and champions are hard to find. It will be an immense struggle to bring it all back to reality.
I am very frightened by these draconian measures and slander and fear for the future of people out of work.
38%s is an excellent organisation in fighting for justice. I join their every campaign in the hope of making a difference. 38%s has got it right as we can only fight this united and en masse.
Undoing the damage the Tories have inflicted on the ‘out of ‘work’ seems impossible but I remain optimistic and am joining and fighting with every united organisation against the Tory campaigns.
Mike, do you have any organisational suggestions?
I was worried that the Tories were practising genocide but now I fear they have gone a step further to eugenics.
We are living in a cruel and mercenary chunk of history that will, hopefully, be looked back upon as being as disgusting as Hitler was with the Jews and his other ‘experiments’.
Mike, your posts make a difference, keep them coming and by sharing we can help influence awareness of the ‘out of work’ people’s plight.

Hasn’t eugenics always been part of the right wing philosophy. Its just that recently the nasty Tories and other extremely unpleasant right wing political organisations have become bolder and subsequently louder with their nasty propaganda.

Personally Philip, I believe the hatred and division they are spreading is deliberate and aimed at the long-standing Tory “divide and rule” principle. They have always practised it in order to keep power and wealth in the hands of the aristocratic, monied and propertied classes. They are despicable, but to overcome them the radical opposition has to be united.

I would just like to point out that racism is being conflated with many things. Racism is racism and as a black man, I can tell you and I am sure that others will, too, that nothing much has changed for us. There is tolerance and to a degree, in certain quarters, acceptance but racism is as alive and well as it ever was. What the referendum has surfaced is a kind of protectionism, rightly called, in the article, xenophobia. Please, do not call racism what racism isn’t. A Polish man at the opposite end of a train carriage will be fine, whereas a British-born black will be viewed with suspicion; after all, how do you know that the man is Polish? They both might be gay, or Catholic, or paedophiles, infertile, university educated, any number of undiscernable things but the one thing that cannot be disputed, cannot be hidden is the colour of the skin and to suffer irrational, negative prejudice from somebody simply because you exist is something that most people never experience.

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